One-Thing Resolution

Downtown Monroe

I don't make New Year's resolutions. But I do resolve to do one thing, and not just on New Year's day.

In Psalm 27 David expresses his One-Thing Resolution. He sings,

One thing I ask from the LORD,

this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the LORD

and to seek him in his temple.

To be in God's presence. This is life's greatest thing.

The apostle Paul expresses One-Thing Resolution like this:

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you

except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Pauline knowledge is personal knowledge. It is virgin knowledge, unpolluted by the coming Cartesian dualism that will alienate the knowing subject from the object to be known. When Augustine wrote, "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you," this is a claim and a desire for intimacy.

Resolve to "be absolutely His," said Oswald Chambers.

“The more we get what we now call ourselves out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become,” wrote C.S. Lewis. This is the Davidic desire to be taken over by God, to be consumed and reified in His presence.

Don't resolve to "be all that you can be." Rather, be all that He can be in you.  

Resolve to live in God's presence.

Resolve to know Him.

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My recent book is Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

I'm teaching a five-month class on prayer, beginning Sat., Jan. 7, at Redeemer.

I'm currently writing Leading the Presence-Driven Church.